Cheyla
by Von Uriken
Summary: Cheyla has always been a brash girl, quicker to curse you out than read you poetry. But Cheyla is known for a lot more than her temper. She's known for battles both long and quick; for saving empires and starting wars; for her struggles and her resolve. But every story has to start somewhere, and hers starts off a little road leading to Bruma...
1. Chapter 1

**About the Author:** I'm a programmer, writer, and quality analyst for the medical field. I've been writing off and on for a long, long time, likely longer than some of my readers have been alive. The past five or so years haven't given me a wealth of time to keep writing, with school and work, but I've been steadily getting back into things.

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><p><strong>About Cheyla:<strong> Cheyla is probably my favorite character right now, and it's hard to say why. She's not really that strong; she's not talented; she talks kind of funny and swears a lot; and she isn't the best at getting along with even good people. But, all-in-all, I feel like she's the most human character I've ever made.

She was also made for RP'ing, so if you want to join Cheyla and Hauch's adventures sometime, you can join her at The New Cornerclub, my TES RP site. The link is just thenewcornerclub dot com.

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><p><strong>Synopsis:<strong> Cheyla has always been a brash girl, quicker to curse you out than read you poetry. But Cheyla is known for a lot more than her temper. She's known for battles both long and quick; for saving empires and starting wars; for her struggles and her resolve. But every story has to start somewhere, and hers starts off a little road leading to Bruma...

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><p>My family gave in to debt when I was young. They owned a farm in the foothills, where my mother tended a garden of herbs and vegetables and my father raised farm animals and hunted vermin. It was a small, homely place. Barely two stories, with stone foundations and fresh lumber walls, it held just enough room for my parents, myself, and my two siblings to roam through the cabbage patches and to the hill above the river.<p>

In the summer and spring, we often spent our entire time out there, hidden in the brush and rummaging through the trees. The land here, half-way between Bruma and the Imperial City, had been cleared of the less savory wildlife before my father was born, or so he said, so it was safe for us to run and play.

It was safe, except of course inside of the ruins or caves. An Ayleid ruin sat not a mile from the cabin, and one brisk spring's day we ventured too far and my brother's leg was gouged as a consequence. The guardians of the old tombs always came back, no matter how many adventurers delved inside. They would come, too. There was an adventurer at least every year, if not every month, stopping by for our hospitality and hearth and to hang their swords up for a single moment's rest before going back to some invisible war that only they could see.

My interest in those types bordered obsession, to the point where I can still remember the ones that passed through. There was a pair of Dunmer sisters one day. One of them looked as strong as my father, but was patient and doting as a mother, while the other taxed my parents' generosity with demands and annoyance to the cold. The summer after, a Nord came in that I swear was as thick as a bear and twice as tall. His companion was an odd one, a walking lizard that spent her time playing with us children and talked so much about caves I didn't think she could say anything else.

I was so intent on those adventuring types that, when the fleshy pink creature sliced open my brother's leg, I stood guard over him while my sister ran back to get my father. I had only a stick, raised in front of me, but I swung it like a sword at the darkness and felt like I banished any threat from rising against us. In truth, I'm surprised the curses I was shouting didn't lure more of the monsters out at us, but maybe my loud mouth caused some good that day and actually scared the creatures off. I never did figure out.

Instead, reinforcements in the form of my sister and parents ran in to save the day. My mother grabbed me up and pulled me away, while my father took hold of my brother's leg and lifted him in the same swoop.

I wasn't too worried. At that moment, not a hint of worry had crossed my mind. There was blood, yes, but those rough-shods that had came and passed had seen their fair of wounds like these and more, and were none the wiser for it. My little mind was proud of what I had done, in fact. So proud that I was exuberant and alive when we returned home.

"Fa'ver, mo'ver, did you see me?!" I was shouting. Not the brightest thing to do, since their faces were strained and serious. "I kept 'dose beasts back 'n more! Why, no'fin could 'ave got past me!"

"Cheyla, quiet!" My mother hushed me, placing a hand over my mouth. She sent me up to the loft with no food that night, and I hadn't the least clue why.

I think I started to understand later that week, and then the next month, and the next. My brother didn't leave his bed after that. A fever struck him within the week, and he looked haggard and worn for a year after, paler than the inside of good bread most the time. Responsibilities abounded with his care; the feeding, washing, the talkings to at night. I didn't want to do any of it, but finally my mother convinced me that, if I was truly a brave little protector, that was what I should do.

So I gave him his stew until the next summer, when my father whittled a crutch from a sturdy branch and he finally ventured up. Any talk of adventures and exploration seemed like so long ago. In the meantime, the sturdy little boy I had known had become a thin wisp of a man.

Adventures, in general, escaped me. My sister was older than me by three, and with my brother lain up for all but the most basic work, she had to take on the extra. So she dug the earth up as the frost thawed, hauled the bushels to and fro, and helped my father drain the kills and strip the meat. All the while I sat as relatively still as a child can, watching for any events that might have struck my fancy while helping my mother with the handy-work. She taught me from a young age to shoe a horse, to melt a metal into a nail and use it to reinforce a wall, and to wash clothes and clean leather and iron.

All the while, they turned back the travelers that had once walked in so openly. They did this, and they kept my brother laying down as he thinned more and kept my sister working in the field.

Those were my worst few years, because while I may have been handy, I wasn't still. I wanted to move, tussle, and boast as a child would. The thought kept in my mind that one day soon I would do that, that once my brother recovered my sister would have some free time, or maybe when the field was sown and a buck had been cleaned and smoked already.

I managed one day with my siblings. The spring had been a hard one. An early frost took much of the garden before it could be saved, and it had been my idea to forage before the next frost, so my sister, brother and I had travelled half the length to Chorrol picking berries, fruit, and hunting the rabbits that darted out to steal our haul. While I had been unfocused, I found us all different.

My sister was tall and wiry, with hard muscles from hard work, while my brother walked with a crutch and limp, all skin and bones. I had a little fat on me still, but I had grown to his height and tougher by far. There wasn't a boastful head among us save mine, so my young mind automatically made me the toughest. The toughest, as every child knows, is also the leader. The job I gave myself was to lead us through the forests, the backwoods, and the fields that still beamed from the frosty crystals.

My clearest memory was standing there on a hill, surrounded by gold, while my brother and sister came to join me. There might have been a voice in my head telling me that I was pushing him too far, but I wanted to hold onto the feeling a bit longer.

I did. He came down with another fever a few days later, and was sick all through the winter.

It was a bad winter, the worst I had ever seen. Snow coated the mountains after it first whipped in liking a ghost howling at our walls. It shook the foundations, and occasionally the floor itself shivered under my feet while we all huddled against the fireplace.

Save for what we had saved and foraged, the crops were gone and many of the livestock had frozen. A few hearty ones survived, but there was too little making it through the winter to hold us all. Most of the winter that I actually remember was how hungry and cold I was, or how miserable I felt. There was only a brief break to the snow-fall that was afforded to us, and my father used it to ride out on our last horse.

The snows came back shortly after, worse than before. They whipped the house, over and over, until I could feel the sidings that I had put up buckle and fall, dragged away into the night. My brother cried, perhaps for the fever or the fright. I almost did, until I recited to myself how strong I was and how crafty. The adventurers from old returned in my minds I, hearkening me their strength and resolve.

We almost starved, if not for my father riding in from the blizzards. He brought us food, glorious parcels of ground flour and dried meats and fruits. There were no questions about where he got it.

I should have questioned it. There wasn't a county around that would loan this much food during this bad weather.

The answer to the question I never asked came after the winter was over. My father and sister, now looking emaciated with hunger, began to work the fields and butcher the surviving animals. Not long after, a cart came through, rolling behind a man on a horse that I had never seen before.

I remember his horse best, because I didn't understand how it could be so healthy looking. The blizzards and ghost winds had sucked the strength and muscle from ours, and the ribs of the surviving two could easily be seen. But this man, his horse was a powerful beast with a shining coat and a high head. His shoes were iron rings that looked newer than a bit of the iron around us.

The man himself wasn't that bad either. He was dressed in finery the kind I had never seen before. His pants may have been a riding leather, but he wore a coat the blue of a dawn's sky, and a cloak that was a bright yellow like the sun on a clear day. Even his hair was pretty, long and tied into a bun, with a golden clasp pulling his beard together under his chin. Topping it all off was a crown perched upon his head.

"My Liege," my father had called him. He bowed, too. It was my first time watching someone bow for real. There had been times in the past where someone, telling a story or reciting a tale, had bowed to myself or my sister in jest and drama. But there had never been anyone that my father had shown this much respect to.

Words were passed, after that, between the man on the horse and my father. I had already run off, unable to hear them beyond the far-off timbre of their voices. This was important news. It wasn't every day that a visitor came by, and never one so important looking.

"Oi!" I shouted as I ran into the house. "The'as some bloke on a fancy-big horse here'a all decked in sparkles!"

Somewhere in my young mind, it never occurred that my mother might be in the house. Maybe it wasn't important after all, but I remember looking at her face after I shouted that and seeing her looking shocked, almost sick. My brother and sister heard it as well, curiosity marring their expressions, but it was nothing like my what my mother looked like. It never occurred to me, either, what it meant when she grabbed hold of my sister as she moved to pass her.

I didn't put much thought into it. Old people thought odd thoughts, after all.

We all gathered up that afternoon near the road, where the Liege and his cart had been joined by a band of men. They all rode horses, thick-looking monsters with shaggy hair that hung down over their hooves, and they all wore armors of leather, cloth, and chain. I had seen adventurers in the past, but never so many people and so many weapons.

My father had been talking to the fancy man on the fanciest horse, and that was where we joined him. I stood a bit away from the others, getting as close to one of the big horses as it would let me. Even the jaw was different than our horses, like it was built to eat meat or something. While I observed, the others were being observed.

First the fancy man looked over my mother, who was holding my sister close to her. Then, my sister, who stood two heads shorter than him, but was all strength on the surface. He smiled at her, before moving to my brother, thin and held to a crutch as he was.

He seemed to finally choose, and moved to my sister. My attention was only fully brought out when my mom cried out.

"Wait, m'lord," my father said. He was a thinner man, like the rest of us, with a long face held under a beak-like nose and a long, stringy beard. "We cannae look afta' the boy on our own. We cannae even look after ourselves! Please, spare the girl."

"I refuse to take the boy," the fancy man said. It was the first thing I'd heard him say, and his voice resonated oddly in me. He had a funny accent, like every word had to be pronounced like it was spelled. It reminded me of the Dunmer from long ago.

"M'lord, there is another." After a moment, I realized that the very air seemed to have changed. A dozen and more heads looked my way, and I had never felt so intensely scrutinized in my life. For some reason, I ended up smiling.

"She's a waif." He said. I didn't know what a waif was, but he said it like he was talking down on me. He spoke like he was better than me.

"Oi'm no waif!" I shouted back to him, which was perhaps not the smartest idea given how many armed cohorts he had. Luckily, it drew little more than laughter. "Oi'm ' strong as my sista'. Flippin' 'ells, Oi'm strong as any boy my age!"

My sparked ire drew him closer, and for the first time since the stranger had arrived, he looked at me. Over the thick, plaited beard and curving nose, his eyes were like a wolf's. They stared me down like a predator, pulling my courage from inside of me and sticking it in my throat like a lump.

But my foolish, headstrong self didn't back down. I stood up to him. I squared my shoulders and bared my teeth, despite my father's background insistence that I shut my face.

"Little one. Who do you think you are?" He asked, slowly, calmly.

I had only one answer to that. "Oi'm Cheyla!"


	2. Chapter 2

**About the Author:** I dream a lot, and switch hobbies and interests faster than I can complete them. I know a little about almost everything, and know a lot about very little. Writing is just something I can come back to no matter how long of a break I take, which is why I have a lot of stories like these that never make it past the first chapter.

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><p><strong>About Cheyla:<strong> Cheyla is a bit of an icon to me. Her youth taught her that everyone did the work, and that the difference between men and women was less than the difference between someone who boasted and someone who stuck to the background. She doesn't know what gender roles are, I doubt she'll ever even find out, but I think something that really strikes out about her to me is how she lets what's inside of her define her much more than the world around her.

She was also made for RP'ing, so if you want to join Cheyla and Hauch's adventures sometime, you can join her at The New Cornerclub, my TES RP site. The link is just thenewcornerclub dot com.

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><p><strong>Synopsis:<strong> Cheyla's first step into life is an unwitting one. A band of men arrive for her, wearing the crest of Bruma on their mantles, following a man of wealth Cheyla has never seen the likes of. Swept along for the ride, she unknowingly sets her greatest adventures into motion...

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><p>I still had little clue about what was going on. First the man in his bright colors and on his large horse had rode to our home. Then he had started to choose between my brother and sister, and that just annoyed me. I was the leader, couldn't he see that? I was the tough one of us children, and I called the shots.<p>

He gave me a good looking over with his sneering eyes, occasionally poking and prodding like he was figuring out if I had enough fat on me to cook. All the while my brother and sister gave me an awkward, pained look. I couldn't tell at all what my parents were thinking. Was it hope in their eyes? Or sadness?

Whatever it was, the man left me to talk to my father, and my mother rushed over to my side. She pulled us all back into the house and started to fuss over me, pulling at my hair in some attempt to tame the fiery monster on my head. All the while she was ranting and rant.

"It'll be good for 'ya," she was crooning. "Dun worry 'bout a t'ing, gal." I didn't understand. Was she worried that he didn't think I was good enough?

"Oi'm 'da best!" I shouted in response. It didn't occur to me that a majority of everything I had ever said was shouted. Or that some things weren't supposed to be boasted. "Oi ain't worried."

My words didn't calm her. The next hour was spent trying to manage my appearance, which was just a lot of hassle to me. The dirt had to be scrubbed off my face with a damp rag, and the little leather jerkin was replaced by my mom's best woven dress that had to be quickly folded at my gut and cut down past my legs, covering my breeches.

After she was done, I almost looked like a woman. At least I looked more like a girl, instead of the field mouse I had been. She led me back outside, bidding the others to stay behind. I didn't like that, and grumbled until she kicked my shin to quiet me.

"Gal, be on ya' best behavior." Came the stern warning, before I was handed off to my dad.

"Oi'm the best!" I bragged again. "Oi'm the best at behavin' too."

My father yanked me over and started to show me off again. It was like the market all over again, watching him pull and bend the chickens to show that they had enough on them to eat. Only, I wasn't watching this time, I was the chicken. I was barely smart enough to keep my mouth short of a grumble, and happy that he wasn't poking my skin and showing off how much meat my legs had on them.

In all, he only showed the man that I was a sturdy little girl who could keep to her feet. That, and my hair was a rarity that would brighten up a hall.

"Oi brigh'en up everything!" I shouted at the man. "Moi 'airs made of flippin' fi'a!"

At the very least, I could make visiting group laugh. They chortled at my words and the way I fluffed out my hair to show them. I could hear some of them talking to each other too, speaking with some kind of thick Norse drawl I couldn't quite understand. What they said must have made sense to the leader, who nodded and stroked the hair of his face as he looked down to me.

"Very well," he said after a while. "The girl can serve for the children. They'll need a new chambermaid."

My father was about to say something when I cut him off. "Oi ain't no chambermaid! Oi'm gonna be an-"

He cut me off after that, clasping my mouth with his hand. "'Dis gal will be the best maid you've ever seen, right?"

"Oi'm 'da best!" I shouted in response, partially muffled by the hand on my face.

"We'll see about that, girl," the fancy man said. He turned, returning to his steed, and mounted it in a single jump. "Claudius! She rides with you."

I was riding? My father had taken me to the market on occasion, which mean riding on the horse or in the back of the farm cart, but these horses were a lot bigger than ours were. Not that I knew enough about horses to be afraid. "Oi can ride by moiself!" I was far too prideful to admit being unsure.

"You and what horse?" One of the men asked, laughing. He approached me, riding on a particularly tall horse that looked near like a giant to me. Atop the horse, the man was as high as the trees, and hidden behind a dented iron helmet and chain armor, with what I thought of as a yellow apron overtop. It had the bird crest of Bruma on the front.

Without warning, he reached down and lifted me by my shoulder with one of his hands, pulling me up and then over. The cart was opposite where I was, and I landed on it with a thud, only to squirm to my feet.

"Watch y'rself or Oi'll put moi foot up yer arse!" I shouted.

Claudius, whom I assumed to be the cart's driver, hopped the horse into motion and I stumbled. A quick decision to land on my butt was the only thing that saved me from backflipping off the cart, or cracking my head open on the cart's edge.

"Be careful ye' sod!" I raged at him. "W'rn us 'fore you try 'n get us kilt!"

My anger quickly abated, and curiousness took ahold. In my short life, I had never ridden in a wagon so big and long. Amidst the laughter and teasing directed to Claudius, I was more interested in the fresh wood and the dark iron that made up the harness.

It occurs to me now that I never looked back as we started to ride. The look my mother gave me as she was fussing over my clothes was the last look I ever saw of her, same for my father and the scolding way he had told me to be calm.

I don't remember much of my brother and sister. My brother's name was Ros, and he was tall and skinny with pale skin and oaken hair. My sister's name started with an M. I remember her being pretty, when she was younger. Her hair was unlike ours, it was black and straight, and when it was clean I could run my fingers through it and it wouldn't curl or grasp at me. She cut it off not long before I left, and looked more like a young man than my brother did.

The men who surrounded me were all different than my family, and all the same to me. They were big and bulky, with too many beards and too little actual faces. Claudius had a face. He was a young man, with little more than grizzle covering a pointed chin. He had a flat nose and high brows that were quite unlike anyone I had ever seen, and his skin was kissed by the sun, until it had browned to the color of hard leather.

"Y' got a weird nose, mate." That was the first thing I ever told him, and I said it leaning over his shoulder as the cart rolled up the road. It was going up because Bruma was always a lot higher than my house had been, and all I knew about getting there was to go up and get tired along the way.

I also knew it was a long, long trek. It could take hours and hours to get there, and I chose to fill the time doing the only thing I really knew. I talked.

"Where we go'in?" I asked Claudius, having already climbed over into the front seat with him. The trees were rolling past now, and when I looked back I could no longer see the little corner that was closest to home, where we left the cart.

"Bruma," Claudius answered. His accent was even better than the others. He spoke low, like he was trying to hiss words, but had too much depth to his voice to reach a snake so instead he turned into smoke.

"Y' voice is weird," I helpfully informed him. He gave me little reply, and I turned my attentions to other things.

The procession didn't say much while they were riding. A few men would group up next to each other and chat like old ladies, or at least chat like my mother did when she was doing the dishes. The rest rode out like they all knew where they were going. Given that we were going to Bruma, I'm sure they did know where they were going.

But it was curious for my young mind to see. Two of them quickly took to the front and soon disappeared up the rising paths, of which I would only see one occasionally stopped in front of us motioning with his hands. Another two marched side-by-side with the fancy man and his hefty horse, and four stuck close around Claudius and I.

I tried to chat one of them up, to see if maybe he would be a better distraction than Claudius. "Oi bet Oi could jump up 'de cart horse in one try." Unfortunately for me, my best attempts at a dialogue didn't seem to charm him, and my attention had to go back to the scenery.

It was still spring in the Heartlands. Pretty early spring, since the snow was just starting to melt around the peaks and everything was a bright, fresh green. The mountains of country Bruma were still in the distance from us, and I could see them often as we rolled over hills and between trees and meadows. They stood tall, white peaks gracing the horizon like a set of guards protecting the far-north Nords.

Bruma, itself, was higher up on those peaks. I had been there once before, when my father had gone to speak in the big house about things that didn't concern me. Up there, the roads were less stone and more hundreds of tiny chunks of gravel. Horses had to fight and wheeze for breath. Everything was pristine and white, like it was winter all the time.

Down here, where our cart pulled to a stop, it was more dark greens of hearty trees and grass that beamed the moment that the sun fought off the clouds. I liked the nature here more than I liked the people.

The town of Adamas Pass was a little place, originally erected to serve as a trading foothold when the paths to Bruma snowed over and travel became fatal. It was made of huts, mostly, and the few buildings that rose more than a story from the ground were made of thick timbers that had been shaved down to a cherry color color and plastered with mortar in-between. There were none of the large, stone structures that made up most of Bruma.

But Adamas Pass was a far cry from Bruma in almost every aspect. The largest buildings were trade depots and storage silos. The only road went into a storage shed, then up from the foothills and onto the stone path that lead to Bruma. Tents and huts had been set into the valley, back before the homesteaders had realized that spring drew the water from the icy peaks of the mountains and turned the valley into a pit of mud and sludge on a good day. I'd heard that the water could sweep in without warning, pulling entire buildings with it on a bad day.

As we settled down, I sort of hoped it would. My home had been relatively clean. There was more than enough space for everyone, and a little outhouse out back kept that more so. The traders here left filth in the ground, and even if the morning was relatively fresh, the mud had an awful stench to it.

I scrunched my nose in disgust. The fancy man spoke a few words to Claudius, then rode on with his guards, through the town and out the other side. The men around me all idled off to one of the only large buildings around. It had doors that swung in and out, but only took half the frame, and wide windows that let me see inside at what looked like a dark, dreary place by any stretch of the imagination. There was even a patio, the only one I'd ever seen.

While they all lazily drifted off, Claudius dismounted the cart and started to haul thick burlap sacks from one of the storage sheds. He laid them down without ceremony, often rocking the seat under me.

"Make yourself useful and sort these," Claudius said when the third sack hit the wood. There was no rhyme or reason to how he threw them down, there was just a lot of them. Three had been loaded already, and another dozen or so remained, tucked into a dry spot in the shed.

"Why don't ye'?" I told him, hopping down into the mud with a splash. "Oi'll carry! Y'r so slow 'bout it 'dat moi dead gram' could do betta'!" It was a saying that my mom always got me with, back when I was little and slow.

But in my mind, now I was all tall and lank, with muscles hidden inside me that everyone overlooked. The sacks were heavy, full of grain or something similar, but I believed that was was strong enough to lift them without any doubt.

So I did. I hitched up my dress and hauled, throwing them one at a time onto the back of the cart while the bemused Claudius sat and relaxed. I slipped and fell once, splattering my breeches with mud, but my imagination took over and I saw myself as a burly worker carrying loads of iron or stone to the foreman's cart. Nothing could stop me.

The next ride was much more comfortable for me. Pride beamed through me and seeped through my tired limbs. Being young and invincible had its perks, and being foolhardy enough to wear myself down in a matter of minutes gave Claudius a brief respite. The respite only lasted until the cart was leaving the village walls, which were all pointed logs jutting out of the muddy earth.

I only noticed when I took a nice breath of air and it didn't smell of foul mud. Fresh cut pine and flowers were in the air, and the sun was growing steadily brighter. Everything glowed green and brown, and if I could have run through that forest in that second I would have gladly been.

But I couldn't run free. Or could I? I had been riding in the cart for hours now, from the early morning to midday, when my stomach started to grumble for lack of food. Never in that time had I asked why. Why was I here? My father expected me to go with them, but to what purpose?

"Oi, Claudi," I said, catching my driver's attention. He only spared me a single glance, and an unamused one at that. "This ain't flippin' Bruma."

"You've got a mouth on you, girl," was his response. It was the most I'd heard him say so far, and his intonation continued to be interesting to me. "We're not going to Bruma."

"Then where?" I asked. I felt like lying down, so I did, climbing back over the cart's seat to collapse atop the sacks of grain and whatever else blanketed the floor. The bumping wasn't so bad then, so I rested and stared at the sky as we passed. "If y'r plannin' on taken' me somewheres to off my head like, Oi'll be taken' y'r jewels an' hangin' 'em o'er the fi'aplace."

"I don't know what you're talking about, girl," he said. "But the Earl gave me orders for where to take you."

"Where?" I think Claudius was halfway through his thought when my next one came to me. "Why?"

He paused, and from the corner of my eye I could see him chewing his words. It was something he did often, chewing when he ate nothing. It always happened when he was staring away, looking at no one and nothing.

"The Earl fed your family when you had nothing," came after a while. I had been listening to the rocking of the car, and pushed myself up on my elbows when he spoke to see him. "Your father owed a debt of life and work. You're the payment."

It made sense, I supposed. Didn't it? My father and I had been to the outpost a few times before. We were simple people, and he was the only of us in tune with the ways of bartering and fair trade. Once or twice in my youth, we had stayed in the little town to do work for goods, and even then it was just a hen there or a bushel of wheat here.

"For how long?" I asked, my curiosity trying to piece together my worth. I had to be worth at least ten of my brother, and one or more of my sister.

"Not for me to say," he said. And that was it from him. His conversing time was over, and his attention went back to the road before us as the rickety cart continued along the valley.

The outpost, with its high wooden-post walls, was in the distance behind us. I could see it all clearly when I looked back. We'd been slowly rising with the scenery, and passed a small brook that gushed with clear frost-water when the town started to be too small to see. From there, the woods thickened, and the pines grew taller and taller. In parts, bits of snow and frost still clung to the trees.

I pulled my clothes, which were the best I'd ever worn at little more than muddy rags, tighter around me. My tiredness was forgotten, and instead I hunched over myself and watched as we navigated a smaller and smaller trail between the large trees.

Was it hours? I didn't think to count, but I grew hungry along the way and voiced my plight to Claudius more times than he could stand. The scenery changed all at once, from huge trees bigger than any house I'd ever seen, to nothing.

It was a clearing, a big clearing. You could fit Adamas Pass between the trees and mountains at least three or four times. Green grass, tall as me and half again, blew under a thick wind that rolled off the mountains. Little sprouts of wheat were just starting to pop up, and I could see a line of shrubs and small trees where I couldn't see a river running somewhere in the field. I couldn't help but think that, if my family had owned this land, we would never go hungry again.

But I didn't have a family now. And that still didn't really dawn on me.

Instead, what I had was the tall man-boy with the funny nose, a cart full of sacks that could get us through a winter, and a destination. My mouth fell open at the destination.

I had never seen anything so big! I thought the trees were large, but this was massive!

It was like a house, but three stories tall with enough left over to fit a fourth. Large windows lined the front, and the middle had an awning that stretched so far, two pillars as thick as horses had to hold it up. The path widened into a big road of gravel that lead up to the place, then looped around in front of it where the grass and weeds had been cut low enough to see over.

There was more, too. I could see stables, carts, a long, long building hardly taller than my old house, and even more structures out behind it. The more I looked around, the more little details I could see. Out in the field, there were a few little houses that barely pierced the green. There were also figures, too far out to really see besides how tall and rigid they stood. They worried me, because they did not move and they did not sway. The field started to worry me in general, and I was glad when the cart pulled away from the tall grass and towards the building.

"'Dis place could hold a flippin' mountain!" I shouted at Claudius, who didn't seem to share my excitement. "'Ews 'de blighta' 'dat owns it?"

Claudius gave me a look that bordered on contempt, to which I gave a mocking sneer back. "That's one of the Earl of Bruma's estates." He sounded tense. "But you'll know it as Sir Carvain's manor."

"Was' a prissy sod need so much land fo' anyway?" The cart slowed to a stop outside the stables, and I forgot my tired limbs and aching stomach to hop out. I could see a few people around, women wearing dresses and tending to lines of hanging clothing and hauling water to and fro. A few men were handling labor in the stables, and some more in half-gear were marching out behind the house, mostly out of sight from the fore road.

"Someone needs to train soldiers," Claudius said as he joined me on the ground. "And someone needs to take care of them."

I looked around, not taking an interest in what he said, or really understanding at all. Everything was so big and bright. Their horse house had a smoke-stack, which meant that they could survive the winter without needing to be bundled or taken down out of the mountains. They had a well, two of them, right next to their house! It was all so exciting.

Something Claudius said did stick with me, though. He spoke it with a tone of soberness, more somber than I had heard him yet, which was amazing given how dull he could be without his funny nose and funny voice.

"This is your home now, until your debt is paid, Cheyla."


	3. Chapter 3

**About the Author:** I tend to come off as a very cold individual at times. I analyze a lot, don't let situations create a bad effect immediately, and put more emphasis on logic than emotional outburst. One of the things I want to do, especially after having a glimpse at how Cheyla starts to learn and grow, is create a species and culture that is more utopian in that their responsibility is towards life as a whole, not just their own. Until then, I'll use as many soap-boxes as I can to preach peace and understanding.

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><p><strong>About Cheyla:<strong> One of the things people have to understand about Cheyla is that things get pretty ugly for her, a lot. She's probably never had an easy year in her life, and the way she survives is by taking the hard parts of her life and letting them define her. Cheyla can sulk, she can brood, and she can get discouraged. But, at the end of the day, she'll turn those feelings into fuel and use them to rev herself up. One thing you can bet for her is to be down and not out. That said, she still writes herself, and if the situation calls for her to die, or pits her against something she can't overcome, that may be how her story goes.

She was also made for RP'ing, so if you want to join Cheyla and Hauch's adventures sometime, you can join her at The New Cornerclub, my TES RP site. The link is just thenewcornerclub dot com.

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><p><strong>Synopsis:<strong> Getting used to a new life is never as easy as it seems. Sure, Cheyla could get a handy tour and a meet-and-greet with her new friends, but life doesn't stop for her, or bend to her attitude. Still the first day, and there are already things Cheyla can't deal with...

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><p><em>"One word to describe Cheyla, when I first met her? Incomprehensible... Absentminded... Vile. Well, I do admit that there is no word I could think of to properly confine her at first, but at least she was much less complicated than the end result."<em> **~ Matron Giustina Renoldus**

They wouldn't let me in the main building. That colored a good portion of my feelings about the women around the Bruma manor. When they came out to meet Claudius and see him to the storage cellar, they ferried me off around the side and didn't let me approach the huge doors out front or even peek inside the windows.

It was an odd building to me for a number of reasons, and that kept my interest even as they pulled at my hands and prattled against my stubbornness. The frame of the thing was huge, and seemed to be built of stone. But it was odd, because there were huge pillars of stone that made up the corners, and between them the stone arched until it was rounded, then went back down to the other side to connect the corners. The middle stones didn't even have supports, they had windows underneath, and wood around them. But they didn't collapse, and my childhood curiosity attributed it to some sort of mysterious magic that held them aloft.

There was a lot of wood in the building, maybe more so than most of the buildings in Bruma that I had seen in my visits. Huge logs had been planed down until the surfaces were smooth, and some sort of siding and pale coloring had been surfaced to what I could see. All of it was built atop a foundation of stones, cobbled and mortared at the base, and often covered by beds of flowers where there were no hatches leading below the earth.

I was even more interested when I saw the back and noticed that the building wasn't just a block. Besides the main house, which was long and rectangular, there were bits attached to the sides that sloped off, and a long section attached to the back that could have been another house. Most of the back was covered by a row of small trees that had been meticulously placed or grown in a loop around it, surrounding and mostly hiding the garden that was out there. Everything that could be glanced at about the main house was scrupulously ornate compared to the rest that I could see.

Further back was closer to a village than the little shed that was behind my old home. A long, wooden cabin had been built into a hill, so that it was short on the outside and towards the back it was nothing more than a roof rising from the grass. There were a few other buildings that had been hidden along with that one, back here. A wash-house, a storage shed, and forge-house surrounded what seemed to be a common hut. Further out, much of the field had been turned to mud and was penned off, but held no animals that I could see.

All of those things had to wait for my curious mind to grace later. The two old biddies that had been pulling me along took me to a house that was wedged between some of the ornate bush-trees. It was one of the only ones with windows, and looked more like a homesteaders house than a mansion or city house, but not so poorly cobbled together as the others around.

One of the two ladies shoved the door open and threw me inside. Her grip hurt, and outside of the colorful language she used to describe my attitude, she spoke with a tone that made me remember when my sister would try to act better than me. I was having none of it, and quickly rose to the occasion as soon as I was back on my own two feet.

"A proper girl should know to walk and keep their attention on their betters," the old woman was saying. She was older than the other, who looked around the same age as my mother or more. This one had graying hair and skin that looked like it was trying to escape her face and return to the earth. Like it wasn't going to wait for her to be buried.

"Oi ain't no propa' lady, ol' hag!" I shouted. For a person so small, I could overtalk almost anyone, and this old lady had no chance. "Oi'm Cheyla! 'N I ain't 'round fo' no witch t' drag me to ha' grave, mind you!"

She must have seen her audible disadvantage. She gave a huff, an insulted protest that was almost a word, but more of a sputter. Then she turned, spinning the puffy dress she wore comically to me, and began to stomp off.

The other one, the younger of the two, took her place. I had yet to hear her say anything, and she didn't disappoint. Instead, she lifted her hand so fast I didn't see it, driving the back of it against my face with a sudden _crack_ that snapped my head back.

She must have been royally pissed. My neck hurt from that smack. My eyes watered, which I could barely tell because my eyes were disoriented and everything seemed kind of distant. I couldn't tell what she said after that, just that she spoke a few words into the room and stormed off after the elder.

It took a quick moment to get my bearings. Given the situation, I would say that I handled it admirably. Less than a year before, I might have started balling in response, but not this day. No, instead I ran out the door. I blatantly ignored the hand that tried to grab me, instead stopping to scoop up a handful of the thick mud that bordered the path of crushed stone, and hurled it as hard as I could at the retreating figure of the old biddies.

The glob ended a few inches short, but one of them still got tagged by the tail end, splashing against the knot of hair on her back and the dark blue work-dress she wore. She must not have felt it, otherwise I would have surely earned another hit, but I was proud and beaming.

"Ha!" I laughed to myself. "Git back t' 'de crypt what ya' belong in." That was said more for my own satisfaction. Those two had already made it around the house, and I was still kicking my feet in front of the little house-amongst-the-trees. It was only when I turned that I saw a few more ears than mine had heard what I had said.

There were boys coming over from the mud-field. They wore light armors, dark red leathers with brown padding over their joints and shoulders, and had wooden weapons between them. At least two had heard me, the one in front being at least a foot taller than myself and stuck somewhere between the softness of youth and rugged handsomeness of a man. He just looked shocked.

I gave a sudden jump when I noticed that there were more people to my side. Back inside the little building were three girls, all of them eyeing me curiously, and one staring with a wide open mouth.

"What 'chu sodda's lookin' at?" I asked, as loudly as I did everything else, at the small group that had come to see the new girl. "Ain't neva' seen a gal what can throw a propa' bit a' mud?" I don't know if I meant to bark at everyone. I was still a child, not knowing that the words I said had weight and meaning, but I was also lost. Nothing in the area was familiar, and nothing was like it was the morning before.

Where was my sister, who always had things under control? Where was my brother, to speak out his ass and back-talk the wind?

Instead there was just a large man-boy, who quickly waved the other two boys back off to the mud-field. "Back to work," he said with a voice that was deep and rolling, "There's nothing worth your training."

The girls weren't so quick to leave, but at least two of the boys had gone and it felt slightly less clustered. People, or at least a large amount of them, had a way of even making a clear blue day seem cloudy. They had a way of making an open field seem small, too, and that's what the extra pressure on me was doing.

"We heard that the Lord Earl was sending someone new," the boy continued as he stepped up towards me. I couldn't help but think of how much taller he was than me, and probably not all that much older as well. He couldn't have seen twenty years pass, probably just one or two more than my own brother had. "Didn't think it was a kid."

"Look he'e, you rot!" I raged in return. "Oi ain't no kid, Oi'm Cheyla!" It was as much an introduction as I could manage. There was barely any feet stamping either, just a lot of puffing out my chest to look bigger and pushing myself his way.

"You're right," he said, while I silently damned the fact that I liked how his voice sounded. "You're not a kid, you're a little rooster." Then he laughed, turning and starting to walk away.

One of the girls tried to reassure me. "Forget Eda," she was saying. I probably should have listened. Listening was just never my strong suit.

Another thing was, she couldn't calm me because I was already a half-pace behind him. I tapped Eda on the shoulder, and he turned towards me with that cheeky smirk on his face. I hadn't even known him twenty seconds and I already hated that smirk!

He saw the punch coming at the last second, damn near tripped over his own boots trying to avoid it. The punch itself was sloppy and wide. I threw it from my shoulder, and my knuckles just barely grazed his face, clipping his cheek and lip before he fell right down into the mud. He spent several seconds down there, just staring. The smirk was gone, and I was standing in front of him beaming.

"Oi'm Cheyla, flippin' rotta'!" I shouted in his face, pointing a finger down to him. "And don't you fa'get it!"

With that said, and the childish pride of 'beating him down', as my mind called it, fully instilled in me, I turned and started to walk away. I faced the little house, heading back to where the three girls had been standing. Only one of them was there now, the other two having disappeared, and that one just looked frightened. She was a mousy thing, with just an eye and a mass of auburn hair showing, as if I couldn't see her.

I felt like I was a soldier. I felt like the toughest girl around.

And then I saw the girl flinch away. Her eyes told me that she was hiding from whatever was happening behind me, something that was going on right behind my back.

The world felt like it was almost stopped, like I was trying to move up a current or through molasses. I tried to turn, but I couldn't make it. Something hit my back before I could. And it hit hard, harder than anything I had felt before, harder than a horse kicking me in the ribs.

I felt arms around my stomach. I felt a shoulder pushed against my spine. I felt a head tucked against my side.

I watched as the world came closer and closer. The soggy ground I had walked out on wasn't there to save me. No, it was the path, the one made of cobbled stones that had been layered out in front of the little house.

My eyes squeezed shut right before I hit the ground. And then, there was nothing. Just bright white stars.

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><p>Everything came back slowly, and everything was fuzzy. I thought my eyes hadn't fully opened yet. I guess that wasn't the case, cause the more I tried to open them, the more I just felt pain and saw more smeared colors everywhere.<p>

Speaking of pain, I was in a lot. I was just starting to realize it too, but I was in more pain than I had ever been in in my life. I couldn't help but groan and squirm. Every bit of me felt like little blades were digging into my skin, and my head was pounding. There was a sharp pain in the side of my skull, that made me even more uncomfortable. I felt the need to pull a piece of rock out of my head that was embedded there, but knew somehow that it did not exist.

Moving didn't help. Groaning didn't help. It felt like hours of just writhing around in agony, and nothing helped. The walls, blurry as they were, seemed to close in on me the more I tried anything. I was rapidly losing what little breath I had, and my headache kept pounding faster and faster with my heartbeat. Those long moments of agony were the closest I had come to wishing for death in my life.

In reality, it was probably a few minutes before someone came to my side. I only noticed them as a dark blob overtop me, and then I pushed myself back and let out a mixture of a groan and a hiss as my side pushed against what I was laying on. It was the pain that made me move like that, not being startled. At least, that's what I told myself.

"Relax," the figure cooed at me. It was a girl, a soft-sounding, angelic girl. My savior. "Eda put you through the wringer," she explained, "Don't move now."

"Oi flgeth," I managed. It was only after the first word that I realized that most of my jaw was swollen, and it hurt like a bitch to speak. Instead of continuing, I replaced words with an extended, "Ow."

"Quiet," the voice chastised me. I kept looking at her while she moved, shuffling around and messing with something behind her. The feeling of helplessness was killing me, since it hurt too much to sit up, but it hurt to lay down, and I couldn't see. My supposed savior was still just a dark blob against a slightly lighter dark blob, in front of an orange blob that I thought was a wall.

I was still scared, even with her presence. Introspection wasn't in my repertoire yet, but I remember asking myself what I was afraid of. If she wanted to hurt me, she would have done it already. Instead, she was just putting something together quietly.

Finally she leaned closer to me, then over me. I could feel the heat of a person next to me, and it felt odd. I'd never felt closeness like that outside of the coldest winters. She smelled like flowers. I'll remember that until the day I die, the smell of those flowers.

"Drink," came another command. Something was pushed against my lip, a rough wooden bowl, and it was slowly tilted back until I could feel the liquid on my lips. It was cool, bordered on cold, and it tasted… horrible! By the gods, I had never tasted anything so awful in my life!

I sputtered. The liquid refused to go down; it hung on my tongue and tried to drown me. Only that drowning made me swallow, and half of it then made it to my stomach. The rest went down the wrong pipe and made me cough pitifully, since each time I made a noise my chest constricted painfully.

"Now, rest," she commanded. Her voice might have been that of an angel, but I had heard nothing but commands from her yet. The thing that really struck me about her was when she reached over and dabbed away some of the medicine that had crept down from my lips. "Tell no one that I came."

And then she was gone. Only a slight rustle of fabric told me that she had even been there, and I couldn't tilt my head to see where she had gone.

I found myself oddly comforted by the fact that I was alone again. In all my life, I had never been constrained to a room or bed, even during sickness. Being free felt better to me than being blocked off by a person. And, yet, she had been caring and tender, more so than my mother, to whom I was a nuisance that had to be dealt with.

Did I want her back? Not really, I was more curious about how long it would take me to see my family again. I recalled, like a passing dream, the feeling of sitting on a bed like this while my mother brushed slime off my face with a rough cloth. I could recall the hard pat she gave me as she sent me off, with the hope that it would not happen again and maybe, just maybe, I could wear some clothes for a few days without them needing to be cleaned or stitched.

I had only been consciously gone from home for about a day, from early in the morning to the waning evening when I they had set me down in front of the house. It had been that long and I already missed my family.

How long was I supposed to be here? How was I supposed to survive when my soul hurt so much?

It didn't take me long to change my mind about the girl who had just left. If that girl returned, I told myself, I would not fuss at her. What I did not know was if I could honor that promise.

The loneliness didn't last long, only as long as it took for the door to open. It had been a few long moments, enough for my vision to start to clear as the healing tonic took effect.

Three girls walked in, and I recognized them as the three who had been in the house when I first arrived. I recognized the little house too, but it was more of a hut with four bunks on either side of the room, warmed by a small brick fireplace and a cooking spit in the center. The corners were filled with cleaning supplies and tools, any sort of bucket or cleaning bristle I could think of. The girls were all dressed to match, wearing hardy sleeves and leggings with cleaning frocks on top.

They paused at the doorway for a moment to unload before entering; one to warm her hands at the spit in the middle, one to go and rest on her own bed, and one in my direction. She was the tallest of them, a pretty girl with grime coloring her nose and hair tied back into a messy tail behind her head. Her expression made her less pretty, like my sister when she was feeling snooty.

"You're up," she said, standing at the side of the bed I was laying on. "Get out."

"Eh?" I managed. I had never been exactly eloquent, and my split lip and swollen cheek didn't help anything.

"This is my bed." Her tone was cold, it chilled me, almost frightened me. I was just waking up and she sounded like she wanted to kill me, something I was never used to as a kid who had only ever had her family.

"Oi' piss on ya' garta' o' somet'ing?" I asked as I achingly pulled myself out of her bed, only for another sharp sting to whip across my face.

One thing I had forgotten when I was cloistered away at home was that older kids were generally stronger. My sister could get a stick up her ass on occasion, but she was too busy to play my games. This girl was older, taller, stronger, and hurt like hell when she backhanded me and busted the other part of my lip.

I fell out of bed with a gasp, landing on my hands on the packed earth. Slowly I reached up and brushed the new blood from my face, spitting a bit of it out to the ground. It tasted, the blood. I'm not sure what it tasted like, but I could tell when the first drop of it reached my tongue.

"You still haven't learned your lesson, fish." She was looking down at me, and I was just staring at the floor.

Why? Why wouldn't my arms move? All I had to do was spin around and I could lay her out flat, but instead all my limbs wanted to do was stay rooted to the dirt and shiver uncontrollably. Why was I thinking of that boy; the instant my head hit the cobble; a vivid picture of him standing over me like she was?

"You're just a little fish," she was saying, "You're a minnow, brought here from some piss-poor country stream. You're food to us, you do what we say, when we say it, and you. Don't. Talk. Back." Then she drove her boot into my side, and I let out a strangled noise of pain.

I had fallen to one elbow, and now I used it to push myself shakily to my feet. The other one, who stood there warming her hands at the spit, saw me look at one of the other beds and shook her head slowly. By the gods her eyes were cold. They chilled me, sent a shiver down my spine.

I didn't want the bed anyway. I just wanted to get out. I managed to slow my breathing, with just the occasional small hiccup where my throat caught. It was miraculous that I didn't choke up more, with how hard it felt to breath. The walls were closing in on me and I felt the deep-seeded need to escape.

But I got out. Almost stumbling, I walked to the door and pushed it open, then closed behind me. Magnus had set, and now the only evidence of him was the pink hue from above the Jarals. It was dark out, with a spring chill that made me shake but felt so good on the warm bruises covering me.

Still, my wounds were healing and soon I would be cold. Cold, alone, and lost in a world I didn't know. Were these the adults that were supposed to watch over me? Was there anyone to talk to after I had just gotten beaten near to death, and beaten again?

That got me thinking about the old crones who had dragged me here and started all this. They made me miss Claudius, who could at least put up with the shit I said, and he made me miss my family even more. And everything made me miss the feeling of freedom and control, because I knew what Claudius had said, that I had to be here because my father had debt to be paid, and that made it even worse.

I found myself crying, stumbling out towards the field of mud, where a row of practice dummies had been set out, then riddled with arrows and swords. The boys that had been training out there had all retired, and I could hear their voices from the long, short building covered by the hill. No one was up, which was good for me, because I didn't want anyone to see me.

I cried. I let the tears streak down my face, my lip quiver, and snot leak from my nose. The cold drew in, and I pulled my ripped dress tighter around me and cried more because this was all I had anymore.

Unfortunately, the yard was the only place I could go, for fear of what might happen to my father and myself when the cold struck harder. I found my way back to the house after the tears had streamed down my face, but refused to touch the door again. Laughter came from the other side, and my lip quivered to it because it was laughter at my expense, I knew. Even if their words did not speak of me, that none of them had even gone to check in the hours I had been gone meant more than words alone.

I would freeze to death before I spoke to any of them, I told myself. Those words helped until my arms started to chill even more, and the wind that whipped down from the mountains pulled an unnatural cold with it.

My savior was found after another hour, most likely, in the cold, after all my wounds had healed to tiny marks and my limbs shivered with every step. No one wanted to be outside, I had seen no souls that would yet, except for the horses in the stables out front. The stable was just three walls and a roof, with piles of dried hay on either side and the horses in the center. One of those piles of hay looked more comfortable than anything I had seen before, and I sat despite the bristles, points, and smell of horse-stink and made myself comfortable.

I used to sleep outside in the summer months, when the heat was too bad to stand my family anymore. That had been my choice.

This was different. I was an animal, now, kicked out of the house by the humans to sleep in the barn.

That thought saved me; the thought of being an animal kicked from the house. I hated it. I hated them, every person I had met to this day. My anger burned as I huddled into the hay, in the cold of the night wearing blood-stained rags. My anger burned hot enough to chase away the chill of fear and and the night.

My anger raged into an inferno inside of me, and that kept me alive.


End file.
